Extracts from the Feb 2004 Journal

It is an incontrovertible, if inconvenient, fact that different societies evolve at a different pace. Some fail to evolve altogether, but regress. Around 1000 AD China could justifiably have dubbed Europe 'barbaric', yet today millions of Chinese practise female infanticide. Around 1300 AD the Muslim Emirate of Cordova was a haven of multi-culturism; today the Arab League doesn't number a single democracy among its 22 member states. [more...]

As if to substantiate ex-Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamed's assertion that Jews rule the world, the Tory Party has now taken up the so-called triple Disraeli option and entrusted the recovery of its electoral fortunes to a Michael Howard-Oliver Letwin-Lord Saatchi triumverate. Simultaneously, it has become embarrassingly clear that nearly all Russia's super-rich oligarchs - some currently on the run from Putin's ex-KGB agents, one in jail, and one ensconced at Chelsea FC - are 'co-religionists'. [more...]

Kate sits silently eating her lunch at Osmond House. Two newcomers arrive at her table and begin a conversation about journalism and politics. Kate literally bursts into life. She tells them that she worked as a political journalist and she would really like to write her memoirs. 'If you'll lend me your manual typewriter, I'll have a go', she says. 'I can't get on with the electric machine. When I type, all I can think of is walking sticks.' [more...]

When one thinks of Christ Church, Oxford, in the interwar years, one thinks of it as the college where Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited holds court, or where the Bollinger Club dinner is held at the start of Decline and Fall. But there was more to the college than effete and dim-witted aristocrats, for it was also keen to add to its scholarly lustre by taking on German-Jewish professors who had been removed from their posts by the Nazis after 1933. [more...]

It was a first-night gala. Jerusalem's Gerard Behar Auditorium was packed. But this was a performance with a difference. Under the auspices of Shekel, an association set up to help people with developmental problems, a performance of Lionel Bart's musical Oliver was being given. All the participants were children and young adults with special needs. Produced in conjunction with the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio in Jerusalem, this was Oliver with a twist. [more...]

Austrian Assistance Fund

Improvements to the Austrian Holocaust Survivor Emergency Assistance Programme (AHSEAP) will enable more former Austrian refugees to benefit from a wide range of essential social and care services. [more...]

Britain's Jewish community benefits from the services and support of 2,000 financially independent Jewish voluntary sector organisations. These have their origins in Jewish immigrant traditions of self-help which accept responsibility for maintaining and improving the health, education and social well-being of all those who identify as members of the country's Jewish community. Indeed, these agencies form a central pillar around which much of the community's activities and identification revolve. [more...]